


you'd better cool it off before you burn it out

by ohmygodwhy



Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Families of Choice, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Missing Scene, Underage Drinking, a second more successful trip to the quarry, me whenever the serpents arent on screen: i hope they're doing ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 03:58:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12762669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: The sheriff looks at them all nasty when he swings the cell bars open to let them out—walks them out to the car, even, like if he looks away they’ll try to burn down the station. Jones is waiting outside, looking all worried and shit. Hugs Toni and gets a hand over Sweet Pea’s fist and asksyou guys good?into Toni’s hair.





	you'd better cool it off before you burn it out

**Author's Note:**

> me, ignoring all my tests next week to write abt how much i love the serpents: guess im back on my bullshit

 

Sweet Pea isn’t a big fan of being shoved into shit. Especially not lockers, and especially not by some Northside cop asshole who just showed up out of nowhere and busted him for doing a whole lotta nothing. Maybe if he had spray painted a building or got caught squatting in an alleyway or something, he would understand, but a raid? That’s the worst kind of bullshit. They avoid this side of town like the plague unless they want some kind of scapegoat.

He had to spend the night in the sheriff's office, too. Packed a bunch of them in one cell like they were animals who could sleep standing up. He let Toni take the corner and slept with his back against the wall under the only window in the room. Fangs wasn’t here, because he had skipped first period to check out this generator that someone was selling across the river, ‘cause their AC stopped working last week and his dad thinks he’s some genius-mechanic who can fix anything.

Point is, his back hurts in a way someone this young should never have to hurt and _Ricky_ had to bail them out ‘cause Tall Boy and every other adult were too busy almost making deals with their fucking rivals to lend them some cash.

The sheriff looks at them all nasty when he swings the cell bars open to let them out—walks them out to the car, even, like if he looks away they’ll try to burn down the station. Jones is waiting outside, looking all worried and shit. Hugs Toni and gets a hand over Sweet Pea’s fist and asks _you guys good?_ into Toni’s hair.

 _Yeah_ , Toni says. Sweet Pea just nods, because the sheriff is still just fucking watching them. Looking at Jones like he’s disappointed and also like he won some bet, like he knew this was how he would turn out. The guy thought _Jughead_ could’ve killed that rich kid. Probably thinks Sweet Pea sells drugs to his prissy ass kid. He wonders, viciously, if the asshole ever knew about Joaquin.  

After a minute or two, the sheriff shuffles them along, like he doesn’t want them clogging up the front steps. _Why’d you lock us up if you don’t want us here,_ he almost says, but he doesn’t fancy another night on the floor, so he waits until Ricky is driving away to lean out the window and flip him off.

Toni’s too tired to join him, and doesn’t even tell him to knock it off, so he uses both hands.

 

“You alright?” Fangs asks him later, in the passenger's seat, where Sweet Pea’s stopped in front of his apartment. His voice is very soft, gentle like his eyes are gentle.

“Yeah,” he says, makes his voice hard and rough so he doesn’t choke. “I’m fine. Nothin’ I can’t handle.”

“I know,” Fangs says. “Still fucked up, though.” And then, a moment later, “Sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Sorry you weren’t there to get arrested with me?”

“Yeah,” Fangs says, and he’s smiling a little. “We coulda busted out together.”

“I’d love to see the fuckin’ look on the sheriff's face,” Sweet Pea laughs.

“He comes back and everyone’s gone.”

“Maybe he’d be the one getting fired for a change.” Sweet Pea says. His brother got fired last week, because there just wasn’t enough money to go around and they _had to let some people go_ , he’d said, slamming a fist against the tiny kitchen counter.

“Who the hell would fire the sheriff?” Fangs asks, and for a moment it sounds like an actual question. Like it could actually happen, like they could actually do something. “How would that work?”

“Revolution?”

“I’m down,” Fangs says, like he always does. Sometimes Sweet Pea thinks he could suggest robbing a bank or jumping off a cliff and Fangs would be right there next to him. He wonders what he did to deserve someone like that; he wonders if he even does deserve him.

Instead of thinking about it anymore, he pops the car door open and takes the key out of the ignition and says, “Come on, it’s fuckin’ freezing out here.”

 

He thought the drag race was cool—could’ve been cool, if the cops hadn’t shown up, and if Fangs was there instead of in detention with Ricky for skipping, and if Toni was the one to start the race off instead of that rich girl who checked her out—it just would’ve been cooler if he were the one driving—or at least the one in the car, instead of that crazy ex-Red Circle guy. Like, he got why it had to be Jones driving, but that Northside asshole? Asshole who called the cops, apparently, instead of letting them settle it their own way.

 _You would’ve won,_ he tells Jones later, clapping him on the back, not because he believes it, but because he hates the Ghoulies and he hates the Northsiders and Jones is a Serpent whose home was in danger, so he would've done anything to win. Sweet Pea knows he would’ve won. _Can’t believe that jackass called the cops._

 _Archie doesn’t know what he’s doing_ , Jones says, like that makes it okay, _he doesn’t get it._

 _Course not,_ Sweet Pea says, _he’s a Northsider._

 _Yeah,_ is all Jughead says, and he sounds very tired.

Sweet Pea asks if he wants to go down to the quarry with them later, and this time he says yes.

 

It’s warm enough to actually swim this time around, instead of just daring each other to get further and further into the water. Sweet Pea doesn’t bother to grab swim trunks on the way out—first of all because Fangs borrowed his last summer and he never got them back because Fangs is the kind of person who takes shit and ‘forgets’ to return it, and second of all because he doesn’t feel like swimming. What he does feel like is getting drunk and forgetting the whole ‘being shoved against the lockers for no reason’ thing. Fangs comes through with a six pack from the back of his uncle’s mini fridge as Sweet Pea swings by to pick him up.

“Go, dude, step on it,” he says when he gets in, pulling the door shut behind him. “My uncle’s pissed.”

“I thought you said he’d be cool with it,” Sweet Pea says, but he hits the gas anyways.

“It was his last pack,” Fangs laughs, breathless. It’s a sound that has Sweet Pea grinning and has his heart beating a little faster, and he rolls the windows down, just because he can.

They meet Toni and Jones and them there. Serpent territory, like it’s been for years now, ever since he and Fangs decided to fuck around after class one day and had to fight some kid off for the good, not too wet and nasty part of the whole thing. Fangs had hit the kid _hard_ , and Sweet Pea’s heart had almost skipped a beat right there.

Point is, it’s their space, and they all pass around the bottle, sprawled out on hoods of cars or motorcycles or the back of Ricky’s truck and get drunk as hell because that’s the kinda shit teenagers are supposed to do. It’s the kinda shit Northsiders do, with their dumb parties on the docks or dances or fancy town hall celebration shit that the Southside is silently not invited to. Who cares, Sweet Pea thinks, our parties are more fun anyways. Don’t gotta dress up all fancy to have a good time.  
  
As they get drunk they get talkative. They tell stories, memory sharing, almost, and laugh at each other until it gets too serious. But it’s not at the serious part, yet, and Ricky is telling a story about how he stapled his hand in sixth grade on some dare, and then tried to get the staple out with another staple.    
  
“Stupid,” Toni laughs. She’s lounging on the hood of Sweet Pea’s dad’s car, jacket spread out behind her.  
  
“I was ten,” Ricky says, “I bet you did all kinds of stupid shit when you were ten.”  
  
“I went to juvie when I was ten,” Jones says from he sitting in the back of the truck next to Ricky, who’s just passed him the half empty bottle. He hesitates, glancing down at it, before taking a very long sip. It’s weird, because he hardly ever talks about the Northside unless he’s asked about it. _There are three kinds of rich people_ , he had said at lunch once, _ones who’ll never look at you twice, the ones who’ll feel sorry for you and give your half their lunch, and the ones who think you ain’t shit._  
_  
_ _What’s the difference between the first and the last_ , Fangs had asked, smiling around the fry in his mouth. Jones had shrugged and said _first ones don’t know you exist, last ones know you exist and don’t like it ‘cause they think poverty’s contagious. I was mostly friends with the second kind._

 _You mean you were a mooch?_ Toni asked, mostly to keep the mood light.  
  
_It’s how I got through all of grade school,_ Jones had laughed back.  
  
“Ten?” Sweet Pea asks now, cause he’d spent a month or two locked up when he was fourteen, but not ten, “Fuck did you do?”  
  
Jones shrugs, taking another quick swig and passing the bottle to Julian, “Got caught with some matches in the bathroom. They thought I was tryna burn down the school.”  
  
“Were you?” he asks, even though he vaguely remembers FP going on about something like this once. He’d left the age part out of it, though.  
  
“Nah, I just thought the fire looked cool—plus, they were just sitting in the hallway, what was I supposed to do with them?”  
  
A few people laugh, Jones included, but Sweet Pea doesn’t think it’s all that funny anymore. Thinks about a ten year old Jughead being shoved into a cop car. Bullshit.  
  
“That’s some bullshit,” he says, cause he’s drunk and would usually say it anyways, “You didn’t do anything. Fuck Northsiders, man.”    
  
For a split second, Jones looks like he maybe wants to argue, but then seems to remember all the shit that’s happened in the last sixty hours or so and “Fuck Northsiders,” he agrees, “Down with the rich.”  
  
“Down with the bourgeoisie,” Toni says, laughing, and Jones laughs too because it’s probably some dumb literature reference.  
  
Either way, Sweet Pea grins, greasy as you’d expect, and takes the bottle from Fangs, who says, “How many times has Scotty been busted for weed?”  
  
“Ten,” Scotty says, “No joke. Half the time I didn’t have any on me, they just assumed.”  
  
“Pretty valid assumption,”  
  
“Not when you get tossed around and shit. Like, are handcuffs really necessary?”  
  
“They just like feeling powerful,” Toni says, whip smart like she always is, and Sweet Pea thinks again about being shoved against the lockers, “You know how many bullies go into law enforcement?”  
  
“A shit ton,” Scotty guesses, and Toni nods.  
  
“Education, too. Those bitches are everywhere. And they don’t like us.”  
  
“Fuck ‘em,” Sweet Pea says. “I can’t believe those Northside kids got community service and we got arrested for no fuckin reason.”

“You know how much it cost to bail your asses out?” Ricky asks.  
  
“A shit ton,” Scotty says again; Toni throws a chip at him.  
  
“I’m working night shifts now cause Hot Dog’s gotta eat,” Ricky complains, “Night shifts _suck_ , and I’m always late for school the next day.”  
  
“Sleep in, who cares about school,”  
  
Ricky shrugs, “I wanna graduate, at least.”

“Same,” Toni says, “I’m trying for that scholarship Julian got a few years back.”  
  
“Your ass’ll probably get into Yale,” Sweet Pea says.

He doesn’t mean to sound bitter about it, because he doesn’t give a shit about school or scholarships because it’s not like he’d ever get into college anyways. His GPA is shit because he’s shit at math and he’s shit at reading, the letters always get mixed up and so do the numbers because dyslexia is a bitch.  
  
“If our dumb high school had AP classes, maybe,” Toni says, throwing some of her own bitterness out there, because apparently they’ve gotten to the serious part now. “I can’t get college credit for shit.”  
  
“Northside has AP,” Julian says, because Julian knows because he took classes there to substitute for Southside High’s lack of resources, “Northside has internship opportunities and summer programs and shit, too. Supposed to be for the whole town, but they never tell us anything.”  
  
“You ever take AP classes?” Ricky asks Jones.

Jones shrugs and says, “Yeah, lit and science, but I’m shit at math. Was too poor for any ‘ _summer programs’_ , though. College counselor gave me a pamphlet on financial aid and told me to keep my expectations low.” He laughs a little, “Never had high expectations to begin with.”

“Probably a good thing,” Julian says, “No one ever gets outta this place.”

Sweet Pea thinks about how long the guy had studied for the SATs and how happy he’d been when he got into that community college across the river. He glances over at Toni, who’s tipping back another drink—they’ll have to crack open another one soon, he thinks absently.

Thing about Toni is that she doesn’t have a mom to worry about getting sick or using up college money to pay for hospital bills. Thing about Julian is that he does. He thinks Toni will make it into college, no doubt about that. He just doesn’t know what they’ll do when she does.

“What about you?” He asks Jones, cause the guy’s gone quiet.

Jones shrugs. Opens his mouth, hesitates, and speaks. “Dunno. I’d like to go to college, but I don’t think I will. Don’t have the money, and I’m not smart enough for a scholarship. Plus, my dad—“ he cuts himself off. _Plus my dad is in jail_ , he doesn’t finish, but his words hang in the air, _and also a gang leader, and also poor as shit_. This town has dried him up and gave nothing in return.

Fangs wanted to be an engineer when he was younger; Sweet Pea remembers him talking about it on the bridge down over Sweetwater, their legs dangling over the edge between the bars of the rail. He found out how selective most engineering schools are, and now he just wants to ‘fix cars’ or some shit. Be a mechanic, maybe. Wreck shit and fix it up and wreck it again. Stay in the same place forever.

Ricky says, “I’m not going to college,” and nothing else.

And it just—it makes Sweet Pea mad. It pisses him off, because it’s all bullshit, and it’s not fair. His brother is the strongest person he knows and it’s gotten him nowhere. He works twice as hard as some people on the Northside and he’s got nothing to show for it. None of them are ever gonna get out of this and they didn’t do shit to deserve it.

“Fuck this,” he says, because he can’t say anything else without doing something stupid, “Let the Northsiders have their fancy internships. We don’t need money to win.”

“I’ll toast to that,” Toni says, and carefully does not ask him what his future college plans are. Doesn’t ask Fangs, either, because she already knows. She knows everything, Toni does.

Sweet Pea thinks that Fangs deserves more that what he’s gonna get. He wants to hit something because of it. Instead, he takes another swig and says, “Now who the hell wants to swim.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> a few of the kids mentioned are from a few of my other fics, i just needed more than 4 sad kids drinking near a body of water bc tht wouldn't be cool at all
> 
> comment to send those 'have toni and cheryl fall in love' vibes to ras maybe he'll listen to the universe 
> 
> also come hmu on [tumblr](http://gaynasas.tumblr.com/) to talk abt these losers


End file.
